A World In Pictures - Charlie Grimes

See that tiny white dot to the right side of this image? Among all of the vast darkness of space, that is Earth. Planet Earth.

While the significant implications of this image, taken by the Voyager I space probe, may not be immediately apparent to you, I encourage anyone reading this to stop and think for a moment. As Carl Sagan says in his novel, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space: "That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines..." The incredibly large scale of the darkness of space juxtaposed with our diminutive planet is extremely humbling, and shows how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. While this image is incredible to marvel at, it is also chilling. For the moment, we are alone. There are no signs yet of any other inhabitable places for humans to go. We must take steps to preserve, protect and appreciate our only home within the massive arena of outer space. We also must realize that our self-importance is non-existent, and we are only a tiny fraction of what is, and what may be out there in the universe.

At any moment, Earth is susceptible to a cataclysmic event in outer space, such as a gamma ray burst (GRB) that flies off of its path, obliterating Earth in seconds. I say this not to be morbid, but to point out that the world (or should I say, the universe?) doesn't revolve around us.